New Advanced Quests

The May 29th update brought the 2nd part of Illusory Onslaught to the servers. With it we gained three new Advanced Quests.

This time the fields covered are Urban, Ruins and Sanctum. Two of the three fields are populated by nothing but Darkers, so light weapons are particularly useful in this selection. With new advanced Quests comes new weapons in the Pyroxene Shop and of course that also means more items to take up even more of your inventory. You didn’t want those inventory slots anyway, right?

Urban

Arguably the most significant addition as it effectively adds permanent access to the Urban field, as well as Dark Ragne’s arena. You’ll actually hear Ragne’s theme more than once per month now! This quest is populated entirely by insect Darkers, including the more recent Dicahda and Predicahda. Do you enjoy having things warping behind you and instantly killing you?

It’s however a little disappointing that the map seems to be based on the original Urban emergency quest, “Urban Recovery”, rather than what I’d argue are superior map layouts that can be found in the later emergency quests set in the field.

Urban brings us a sword, assault rifle, twin machinegun and a wand. All dark element. However the ingredient weapons themselves are among the rarest items in the game right now.

Evil Curst

Pandora Extreme

In terms of new drops El Ahda drops a powerful new wand, Evil Curst and Predicahda Nero can drop the 2nd strongest twin machinegun in the game, Pandora Extreme. Gwanada Nero can drop red versions of all its weapons, Gwanada Nero Double, Gwanada Nero Dagger and Gwanada Nero Lance. Dark Agrani can also now drop rare variants of its gear, namely Agrani Answerer, Rear/Agranesuil, Arm/Agraneanka, Leg/Agranesiezer (my own dodgy translations for now til I find better).

Ruins

While I argue not as significant an addition as the Urban AQ this quest brings permanent access to Falz Hunar, so that’s something. His sword, Elder Pain, is still exceptionally rare however and it’s now outclassed by a number of weapons anyway (though Vampiric Blade is still a powerful ability). This quest is populated entirely by fish darkers, although no Micdas, Ol Micdas or Gawonda/Guwonda as they’re already in the Desert AQ.

Ruins brings us another sword, doublesaber, assault rifle, launcher and talis. All dark element. A big selection for a single quest. Unfortunately these all require 10* exchange items, although they’re generally more common than the ones required for Urban.

Divine Amaterasu

Dagash Talis

Seireikikami

In terms of drops, forces gain a few things. Dagash drop Dagash Talis in case you’re a crazy person who actually uses Talises. The other floatagefish, Dagacha, also drops a talis named Seireikikami. Krabahdas drop the strongest rod in the game, Divine Amaterasu. The strongest rod that can be sanely acquired anyway. So yeah, Ruins is pretty darn significant if you’re a force just for the Rod if nothing else.

Sanctum

Fairly unremarkable. It’s just like the free field only without any Darkers, in essence. The 2nd area seems to use stage blocks I’m not familiar with however.

In terms of drops there’s obviously the new exchange items themselves. Dilandarl drops the new sword, Sol Dilandarl drops the new rifle and Goron Zoran drops the new Talis. The newly added rare variant of Goron Zoran, Zoran Goral, drops Za Tarot which is a good all-class Talis.

Advanced Exchange Gear

So are the new items worthwhile? Well given how rare Chelate Edia is compared to Ruins Charm it’s strange that the upgraded version of it should be weaker than its counterpart. The swords are all nearly top of their class however, only being outclassed by the likes of Dragon Slayer and the new katana. Fossletrix’s upgrade is the 5th best in its class, but requires a relatively rare exchange item. The new assault rifles are all roughly tied at 4th best, but two of them need 10* items in exchange with Calci Weapon being extremely rare. Acro-cane‘s upgrade is 6th in its class, which is a little disappointing for such a rare prerequisite item as its barely stronger than its more common counterparts. As for Talises, they have the fun issue of being out-classed by the newly released Dagash Talis, which quest records indicate isn’t too rare but I may be misinterpreting numbers. They’re decent enough weapons overall, it’s just some in particular have such rare pre-requisite items that there’s no good reason to go for them unless you really like how they look. Doesn’t help that a fair number of these require 10* items, so you’re dependant on your luck for them unless you fork over for premium.

This batch sure did add a fair few swords and assault rifles. The weapon classes are left rather imbalanced in terms of supply for the exchange so far. To illustrate:

Swords: 4

Partisans: 1

Wired Lances: 1

Double Sabers: 2

Knuckles: 2

Twin Daggers: 2

Assault Rifles: 4

Launchers: 1

Gunslashes: 2

Twin Machineguns: 3

Rods: 3

Talis: 3

Wands: 3

Swords and Assault Rifles seem to be favored more heavily than the other classes so far, with Partisans, Wired Lances and Launchers with one each. Though I’d argue that Fighter is probably the worst off here, given that Double Sabers are still their key weapon (due to balancing issues that have yet to be addressed…) and both of the available ones require 10* items, which can only be bought from player shops if you have Premium. Related to that, it’s nice that the new exchange items from the Sanctum AQ all require 9* items.